The Interdisciplinary Marxism Working Group at UC Berkeley invites graduatestudents and independent scholars in the humanities and social sciences tosubmit proposals for a conference, taking place on Friday March 6 andSaturday March 7, 2009 at UC Berkeley, on economy and culture in thepost-WW2 era.

Recent crises in global capitalism have functioned, as crises often do, toreveal the historical contours of the present, providing new opportunitiesto read history against the grain. This call for papers proposes that asour economies enter a period of potentially profound structuraltransformation, it is all the more necessary to examine the relationshipbetween the economic mode of production and cultural and social forms.

For this conference, we seek work that brings together analysis of themodes of economic accumulation which have characterized the last 60yearsâ€"their actors, institutions, histories, and structuresâ€"with analysisof the forms of subjectivity, ideology, culture, and resistance they haveproduced and been produced from. How have attempts within sociology,geography, political science, and history to explain the economictransformations of the 70s influenced accounts of cultural forms before andafter this shift? Where do considerations of the novel, of poetry, of film,of visual art, and of architecture stand in relation to broader economicand political histories? How does work in sociology, cultural studies, andanthropology on the collectivities and cultures of economic productionâ€"fromday traders to migrant workersâ€"negotiate the relationship between subjectand structure? How can analysis of economic processes like risk management,collateralization, foreign and consumer debt structuring, privatization,and data collection give us access to related transformations in nationalsecurity, war, and neoimperialism? What has been the social or culturaleffect of new forms of labor, including not only new modes of â€œimmaterialâ€knowledge work but also the labor being done in sweatshops andmaquiladoras? Other potential topics of interest include, but are notlimited to, the following: cultural globalization and uneven development;anti-capitalist social movements; experiments with value in literature andthe arts; the management, exploitation, or creation of risk; other capitals(cultural, social) or other economies (symbolic, affective, libidinal,spectacular); financialization and culture; class contradiction andconflict in literature and the arts; technological transformations ineconomy and culture; race, gender, or sexuality and the economic.

We hope this conference will provide an opportunity for dialogue betweenall participants of the sort often not possible at larger conferences. Assuch, we will not schedule panels concurrently, and request that paperspresented not exceed 20 minutes so that each panel is followed by ampletime for Q&A. All panels and events will be free and open to the publicand accepted participants are expected to attend as many panels as possibleto enable a sustained conversation over the 2 days of the conference. OnFriday, March 6th we will feature a keynote presentation by New YorkUniversity Professor of Art and Public Policy Randy Martin, whose mostrecent books include The Financialization of Everyday Life and An Empire ofIndifference: American War and the Financial Logic of Risk Management,searingly critical and engaged interdisciplinary accounts of how life islived, war fought, and ideology sustained within a financialized present.

Paper proposals should be no more than 600 words (1-2 pages double spaced)and should be accompanied by a brief cover letterâ€"this letter may (whereapplicable) describe any larger project from which the proposed paperemerges, list other conferences or symposia in which the submitter hasparticipated, and should provide contact information. Proposals and coverletters should be submitted via email to imwgconference_at_gmail.com asattached documents by Monday, December 1st and all accepted presenters willreceive their invitations to participate no later than January 1st. Thisconference is intended to be primarily an opportunity for graduate studentsto present their work, but postdoctoral and early-stage independentscholars are welcome to submit proposals as well. One or two meals will beprovided by conference organizers and if housing costs are a prohibitiveburden, arrangements for housing with local participants can potentially bearranged.

This event is organized by the Interdisciplinary Marxism Working Group, agroup which has, for the last ten years, provided an opportunity forgraduate students, faculty, and others to read and discuss together worksof both classical and contemporary Marxism and to frame those conversationsaround interdisciplinaryâ€"historical, structural, and theoreticalâ€"concerns.The conference is additionally funded by the Doreen B. Townsend Center forthe Humanities and affiliated departments and groups across UC Berkeley.